My path to ministry wasn’t linear. I wasn’t a devout believer. I didn’t have a road-to-Damascus conversion. Yet there was a moment when everything changed. It began with an invitation.
“Would you like to come into the room? The pastor wants to say a prayer for Laurie.”
No. I did not want to go into that tiny, cramped room in Jefferson University Hospital in Center City Philadelphia, where my Aunt Laurie was confined to a bed, surrounded by machines. And people.
The room felt crowded with only one or two visitors, but there must have been five or six loved ones huddled around her bed, including her giant pastor, Blake.
It was downright claustrophobic.
Blake was a nice enough guy, but I really wasn’t sure what I believed, and I was afraid Blake would pray for Jesus to take Laurie’s cancer away — urging us to do the same, to pray harder. I hadn’t seen the inside of a church for years.
Laurie was diagnosed with cancer with an unknown point of origin. She was a fighter! She had beaten cancer before, but her doctors didn’t know what kind of cancer they were treating this time. They didn’t know the best therapy going forward.
Fear and anxiety hung in the air outside that little hospital room.
Inside the room was different, though I couldn’t see it at the time. The people in that room were filled with love for Laurie. Their love crowded out the fear. And Blake was there to remind everyone that the love came from God. He was there to remind Laurie, and everyone else, that they were never alone.
I didn’t want to go into that tiny room, but as I look back, I guess a bit of the Spirit in that room crept out into the hallway and into my heart. Something inside me said, “Buckle up. This ain’t about you!” And I went in, perhaps more afraid of disappointing my aunt than anything else.
Blake offered a simple prayer: “God, we don’t know what your plan is, but we ask that Laurie be healed and restored to us. And in all things, let your will be done. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.”
“God, we don’t know what your plan is, but we ask that Laurie be healed and restored to us. And in all things, let your will be done. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.”
That was it.
The prayer acknowledged our hopes and our doubts. There was no false certainty. No foolishness. Just a simple, honest plea. And an admission that we don’t know the answers or the way forward. It was unexpected.
Laurie struggled for a few months before dying in mid-June. The autopsy revealed pancreatic cancer. Even at 46, she never had a chance.
Both of my grandmothers also died that year. These women, along with Laurie, were present for every major event in my life. My family defined me. Then three of my closest family members vanished.
I felt unmoored.
I was un-becoming.
I couldn’t hold it together at my job, and I was fired a few months later.
In those dark months after the deaths, I did a lot of grieving and soul-searching. I knew something was missing, and not just the people I’d lost. I drifted back into church — Blake’s church. More than anything, it was the relationships that brought me back: the relationship between Laurie and Blake that I got to witness, and also the chance to build a relationship with Blake. A few years later, I was in seminary.
In my season of rebirth and discovery of a new vocation, I learned that the Bible is not a rigid set of rules or a checklist of things to do (or not do) so that I might get into heaven. Rather, I have come to understand Scripture as a story of God in relationship with humanity. God is the one who initiates this relationship, who reaches out to us and reminds us we’re loved. And we’re not alone.
We’re not alone.
In my ministry, I have had the honor of celebrating many funerals and walking with many people in their seasons of grief. Typically, when I’m presiding at a memorial service, I read from John 14: “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go and prepare a place for you?”
My hope, in every such service, is to remind people that they remain connected to God and to the loved ones they have lost. I was unable to see my own connections to a larger family until I went through a season of loss, accompanied by some great pastors, who walked with me on a journey from death to rebirth.
I’ve learned that sometimes God reaches out to us through a Spirit that nudges us into uncomfortable spaces. May we all be attuned to that Spirit and its call to rebirth and renewal.
